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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-CHOWCHILLA-CA · Chowchilla, CA 18,876 pop · income 40th pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Chowchilla
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Chowchilla on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Palestine · lowest
46,228
Palestine · lowest
46,228 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #1
Granville · near
63,304
Granville · near
63,304 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #2
West Wyoming · near
63,304
West Wyoming · near
63,304 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #3
Conway · near
63,307
Conway · near
63,307 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #4
Chowchilla · this city
63,308
Chowchilla · this city
63,308 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #5
Bonanza · near
63,308
Bonanza · near
63,308 median HH income
41.6% of the leader · rank #6
Hermosa Beach · highest
152,019
Hermosa Beach · highest
152,019 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Chowchilla on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 18,876.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Chowchilla - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Chowchilla places in the 40th percentile for household income and the 36th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
40th
percentile, household income
69th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
36th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Chowchilla, CA
Chowchilla is a small town in California, home to 18,876 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Chowchilla report a median income of $63,308 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 17.6%. Home values in Chowchilla run a median of $331,500, and the median resident age is 34.6 years. 16.7% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 34.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 34 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 209% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1866.3 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,053 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts California's average monthly utility costs around $275 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 88.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Chowchilla's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from housing and income to schools and households to population change to comparison shortlist to reported crime to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Chowchilla, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Chowchilla?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 17.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the education layer cover for Chowchilla?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 9 public schools within the city match. 16.7% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
Is Chowchilla growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -134 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 34 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
Which cities make useful reference points for Chowchilla?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within California, the closest population matches are Pinole (18,835 residents, $120,833 income); Olivehurst (19,071 residents, $80,477 income); Dixon (19,158 residents, $98,798 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Lansdale, PA (18,865 residents); Palestine, TX (18,888 residents); Cullman, AL (18,894 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Chowchilla?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1866.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 18% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
Total reported rate
1866.3
Violent rate
676.8
Property rate
1189.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Chowchilla?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 71.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Drive alone
71.8%
Work from home
6.3%
Public transit
0.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 4,915 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 17.6% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Chowchilla, CA
20/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Household income F
$63,308
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
16.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
17.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
677 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
110.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Chowchilla profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 39/100 (F) · $63,308
Bachelor's+ share: 25/100 (F) · 16.7%
Poverty rate: 18/100 (F) · 17.6%
Violent crime: 7/100 (F) · 677 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Chowchilla sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Chowchilla's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Chowchilla highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Chowchilla, CA (this city): home $331,500, crime 1,866/100k
Lansdale, PA : home $319,000, crime 1,104/100k
Palestine, TX : home $153,400, crime 1,863/100k
Cullman, AL : home $215,200, crime 2,682/100k
Mebane, NC : home $295,600, crime 3,518/100k
Winder, GA : home $251,700, crime 1,372/100k
Pinole, CA : home $697,100, crime 2,458/100k
Dixon, CA : home $575,600, crime 1,562/100k
Arcata, CA : home $466,600, crime 2,271/100k
Coronado, CA : home $1,998,900, crime 1,947/100k
Hermosa Beach, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 2,851/100k
How does Chowchilla compare to other US cities?
Here's how Chowchilla stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income40% higher than other cities
Home value69% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety36% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at California, Chowchilla ranks #213 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Chowchilla against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to California only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
California-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Chowchilla near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Chowchilla ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Chowchilla only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,009 of 1,338
25th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,005 of 1,343
25th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#233 of 1,450
84th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#993 of 1,458
32nd percentile in California
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within California only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
40th percentile nationally for median household income · 36th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Chowchilla's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Chowchilla's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Chowchilla's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$331,50031st percentilemore affordable than 31% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Chowchilla's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,235 of 15,516
More affordable than 15% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,719 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.2×, Chowchilla sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,235 of 15,516 and #2,719 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$63,308Chowchilla, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Chowchilla, CA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Chowchilla, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)16.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)17.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)34.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
18,876
Median Income
$63,308
Median Home Value
$331,500
Median Age
34.6
Poverty Rate
17.6%
Labor force participation
34.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
16.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1866.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
676.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1189.5
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Chowchilla's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
18,864 residents
2021
18,863 residents
2022
18,741 residents
2023
19,373 residents
2024
19,190 residents
2025
18,730 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
34
housing units authorized
Single-Family
34
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
11
11
0
$2.9M
2020
6
6
0
$1.4M
2021
71
71
0
$12.8M
2022
81
81
0
$19.3M
2023
27
27
0
$8.0M
2024
34
34
0
$8.5M
Permit volume increased 209% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
71.8%
Carpool
17.3%
Public Transit
0.7%
Walk
2.0%
Work from Home
6.3%
Other
1.9%
Based on 4,915 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
California statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $275
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across California at $275 (electricity about $150 , water and sewer about $70 ).
These are California statewide averages, not a meter reading for Chowchilla. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
California's BEA cost-of-living index is 110.7 (Well Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Chowchilla is $2,053/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to California statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 88.7 / 100 (Very High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a California statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Chowchilla sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Chowchilla compares to similar-size California cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.